(editor's note: Somehow the post that was to accompany Ted's video went adrift. I am attempting to recreate the feeling of that post days later.) Ted Hoff of Cottonwood Ranch and Kennel is constantly working with his dogs and the dogs in...
March 4 to 11, 2010
Visible Planets: Morning: Mercury and Saturn Evening: Venus and Mars
Cocoon and Self-Nurture, Relax and Rejoice
Last week’s foot of snow is quickly vanishing here on Wrights Mesa. In its place are fields of matted grass and frozen dirt, which turn to mud when temperatures rise. Today the skies are clear and the wind is strong. I’m alone in the house with my three dogs, listening to the chimney whistle and the fire crack.
I’m aware that Spring is on its way. I’m comforted that we’re facing the seasons of lengthening days and warming nights. This morning I cleaned bluebird houses and prepared them for the returning pairs, with hopes I’d see them soon. Yesterday I drove to the West End and watched newborn calves frolic in the slanting afternoon sunlight, curious but close to their mothers and the rich milk upon which their lives depend.
The Pisces/Virgo Full Moon of Feb. 28th has come and gone, followed by the very recent [Mar. 3rd @ 9:06 p.m. MST] conjunction of Venus and Uranus, also in Pisces. Issues of camaraderie, inter-connectedness, chaos and creation were balanced with the need for order and organization, work and health. Romantic and financial relationships popped up in new shape and form, themes of freedom and variety ran rampant. We were awakened to the overall necessity for and collective paradigms of unity in diversity and liberty in responsibility.
At 15 weeks, Drake's training continues. Ted Hoff, Cottonwood Ranch and Kennel, has engaged Cabela and Mae to help with Drake's socialization, and to model longer periods of Sit/Stay. Notice how Drake, the young yellow Labrador, pays attention to what the more mature...
February 25 to March 4, 2010
Visible Planets: Morning: Mercury and Saturn Evening: Venus and Mars
“When the gods are crazy, when the world seems to have gone insane, when there seems to be nowhere to turn, we have to look inside our own hearts to find what is true, what matters, and what can never be taken away.” – Stephanie Austin, The Mountain Astrologer, Issue #149 Feb/Mar 2010.
Returning from Mexico and jumping in to the process of “re-entry” here in los Estados Unidos – the United States – I am impressed by the whirling, swirling creative chaos of our current cultural condition and conditioning. Living without a television or an internet connection, in a land of swaying palms and breaching whales, I seem to have lost touch with the fast-paced paradigm of American life.
Don’t get me wrong, I'm loving my DSL, satellite TV and gourmet kitchen. Our humble home feels like a mansion after two months in either a camper or a casita with my XL husband and three big dogs.
Telluride Inside...
February 18 to 25, 2010
Visible Planets: Morning: Mercury and Saturn Evening: Mars and Jupiter
The Aquarius zodiac month ends on Feb. 18th at 11:36 am MST, when the Sun enters the mutable water sign of Pisces the Fish. The twelfth and last sign of the tropical zodiac, Pisces brings us to a type of culmination and ending, the completion of one full cycle around the Sun.
Characterized by compassion, sensitivity, imagination and other-world creation, Pisces represents that part in each of us that is divine. It’s the mystical and metaphysical, the magical and mysterious, the spirit and the soul.
As I drive through Baja and enter the United States, I’ll be living, breathing and traveling that invisible thread that interconnects and binds us all – land, sea, plant, animal, stellar and cosmic. The One, the All, the Forever and Ever. Where Eternity and Now join hands, where Destiny and Free Will dance. May we walk in Beauty and live in Grace. Happy Pisces!
Ted Hoff at Cottonwood Ranch and Kennel is well-known for training hunting and retrieving dogs. Telluride Inside...
February 11 to 18, 2010
Visible Planets: Morning: Mercury and Saturn Evening: Mars and Jupiter
The Chinese Lunar New Year 4708 – the Year of the Tiger – begins at sunset following the first New Moon after the Sun leaves Capricorn and enters the sign of Aquarius, based on when it occurs in China. In 2010, the Aquarius New Moon takes place on Feb. 13th at 7:51 pm MST, past sunset, so the Chinese New Year will not officially begin until sunset on Sunday, Feb. 14th, Valentine’s Day, giving us a chance to combine fun and festivity with love and romance. Aquarius is excitement, new ideas and fresh vistas. It’s the season of more direct light and lengthening days. We feel a certain regeneration and rebirth. We have moved out of serious, cautious, conventional Capricorn and into a time of renewed hope and budding inspiration. We are wanting and willing to connect with people we don’t know, do things we haven’t done and try on hats we’ve never worn.
Ted Hoff, of Cottonwood Ranch and Kennel, continues his training discussion with this video about 13 week old Drake, a golden Labrador Retriever. Ted says Drake's socialization with appropriate older dogs is a vital part of his training. Watch young Drake...
February 4 to 11, 2010
Visible Planets: Morning: Mercury and Saturn Evening: Mars and Jupiter
Well, it’s Super Bowl weekend and it’s the last weekend we’ll be staying at Cerro Salado, the magnificent casa we’ve had the pleasure of occupying for the last two months. The Moon is waning, rising later each night above the ocean horizon, shimmering it’s magic upon the Sea of Cortez. I’m feeling a bit nostalgic as the Jan. 15th solar eclipse lunar cycle draws to a close. A few weeks ago, I wrote about the memories and reiterated themes of the Capricorn eclipse in January of 1990, when we were here in Baja at Cabo Pulmo, building a little hacienda of our own. Bush Sr. was bombing Baghdad and I was doing laundry by hand. I had been poignantly aware of being an American gringa in a third world country, concerned about political corruption and the seemingly impossible dream of world peace.
